Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an electrosurgical system and method for operating an electrosurgical generator. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a system, method and apparatus for interdigitation of electrosurgical waveforms generated by radiofrequency resonant inverters.
Background of Related Art
Electrosurgery involves application of high radio frequency electrical current to a surgical site to cut, ablate, or coagulate tissue. In monopolar electrosurgery, a source or active electrode delivers radio frequency alternating current from the electrosurgical generator to the targeted tissue and a return electrode conducts the current back to the generator. A patient return electrode is placed remotely from the active electrode to conduct the current to the generator.
In bipolar electrosurgery, return and active electrodes are placed in close proximity to each other such that an electrical circuit is formed between the two electrodes (e.g., in the case of an electrosurgical forceps). In this manner, the applied electrical current is limited to the body tissue positioned between the electrodes. Accordingly, bipolar electrosurgery generally involves the use of instruments where it is desired to achieve a focused delivery of electrosurgical energy between two electrodes positioned on the instrument, e.g. forceps or the like.
Electrosurgical generators may have multiple outputs to power multiple electrosurgical instruments. When multiple instruments connected to a multiple output electrosurgical generator are activated, the generator delivers the programmed power to the parallel combination of connected instruments. However, prior art generators were not capable of equally distributing power to multiple instruments. Since it was unlikely that multiple instruments would be activated at the exact same time and used on the exact same impedances of tissue, it was not possible to obtain consistent performance with multiple instruments connected to multiple outputs of the electrosurgical generator. Thus, simultaneous activation of multiple instruments using existing generators resulted in poor performance, and in situations where multiple surgeons were operating on a patient simultaneously the results were unpredictable. As a result multiple electrosurgical generators were utilized to provide acceptable performance. Accordingly, there is a need for an electrosurgical generator configured to power multiple electrosurgical instruments that are usable simultaneously and to regulate individually the specified output power for each of the instruments coupled to the generator.